Hubris
by Syrasha
Summary: The crowd screamed and wailed around her, in disbelief or in bloodlust, but it was as if she couldn't hear it. The world stood still around her, as if she had stepped out of her body and into a surreal nightmare.


**An introspection.**

* * *

Everyone knew of the Mountain. No matter the Viper's poison, mountains did not bleed. Mountains did not fall. Mountains could erode, wash away, could even crumble. A stone at a time could be chipped away from a mountain, but a stone too big could crush even the slyest snake into dust.

The Dornish were strong, with strong princes to lead them, but Elia's gruesome demise had made Oberyn blind to the fact of what was standing before him… and vengeance was a fickle mistress.

No. Vengeance was no mistress. Vengeance was a poison, a blight to man's pride, a sickness that left women as widows and children as orphans.

It was enough that she could nearly laugh when she thought of how he had filled her with hope. The stomach, the ankle – each stab of his sword actually gave her a glimmer of hope. Ellaria hated him for that, and she hated herself, too, when she realized that she couldn't possibly hate him, that it would be too easy to hate him. Oberyn Martell fell, he stood, he danced and entertained, and when he finally got his justice… his paramour watched him pay for it with his eyes and with his life.

_He paid for it with my companionship._

_He paid for it in leaving our daughters behind._

_He found justice for Elia, and he found his grave, too._

It was like standing in a vacuum, as her Viper and the Mountain laid in silent unison. The crowd screamed and wailed around her, in disbelief or in bloodlust, but it was as if she couldn't hear it. The world stood still around her, as if she had stepped out of her body and into a surreal nightmare. Her tear-filled eyes turned to the podium full of _Lannisters_. The golden lions of Westeros, the royal family, the king-slaying family… King's Landing was everything that Dorne had always steadfastly not stood for. King's Landing was no place for justice. It was no place for justice, but somehow Oberyn had still found it. Even in the process of dying, he had achieved the impossible, and weaseled the truth out of King's Landing.

_You're going to fight that? _

She had asked him this, in disbelief. He had laughed – he had had a beautiful laugh – and she had been fool enough to let it put her at ease, ever so slightly. His smile was like an anesthetic. He had always had a way of making the world seem a better place, and though she had always loved Dorne, Sunspear with Oberyn had been another beast entirely. It had been full of light, with the hot Dornish sun beating down on every stone and grain of sand.

Ellaria wondered if she would ever be able to look upon Sunspear with a smile again.

The remains of his head were mocking her from the ground, and she looked away, only to meet eyes with Tywin Lannister. Ellaria looked away almost as quickly as the contact was made, and her mind was more than made up.

She refused to stay in King's Landing a moment longer than necessary. These people had not deserved her lover, and they did not deserve a second more of her presence either. Tywin Lannister would see justice one day, but she would not make the mistakes of her prince. Oberyn had been rash and blind, searching for justice with righteous fury that left him ignorant to the world. The Seven would punish Tywin Lannister as they saw fit… Oberyn had tried to play a hand in justice that should have been left to higher powers, and he had paid the ultimate price. They both had.

A hotblooded Dornishman had died to his hubris. A fitting end, Ellaria scathingly thought.

Elia would have been furious.

With a sweep of her robes, Ellaria turned from the crowd and her love both. There was no joy in justice; she had known before, but she'd never tried to tell Oberyn. If she had, perhaps things would have been different; no, she knew better than that. He had always treated her as an equal, something hard to find in Westerosi men. Dorne had always been a little skewed by Westerosi standards, but he had been stubborn in the best times, much less those times when his eyes had gone red with the fire of hatred he reserved for Lannisters and rapists… and especially for rapists that had been charged with the responsibility to do so by Lannisters. Her daughters would have no father, and neither would the daughters he had fathered before her.

There was no shame in crying, and cry she did. There would be more to do when the Sand Snakes heard the news… but with every fiber of her being, Ellaria would stop the killing here. Oberyn would be the last of her precious ones to die from taking justice into his own hands.

His daughters' inevitable cries for vengeance, for justice, would fall on her deaf ears.

* * *

**For Ellaria, whose lover's death was cruelly misinterpreted by D&D, and for Oberyn, too, who missed out on about ten minutes of screen time for a stupid speech about beetles.**


End file.
